


Dolls like you and me

by Wallissa



Series: Ineffable Week [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Melancholy, Pining, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 05:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20595833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallissa/pseuds/Wallissa
Summary: 6000 years are an awfully long time to miss someone. Crowley wanders through the glittering streets of London, dancing through memories of longing, love and long hot summers. The weather’s getting ugly, but he thinks about the stars above and a warming smile.Ineffable Week, Tuesday: inspired by a songor poem





	Dolls like you and me

**Author's Note:**

> The song this is inspired by is [Star Treatment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_2rM8A_1-w) by the Arctic Monkeys!

The streets have turned into a glittery maze, filled with a sea of people. Crowley isn’t drunk, at least not on alcohol, but there is a lightness to his steps and his mind is clouded with that hazy kind of melancholia that comes with walking through nightly streets on your own. Maybe he’s a little intoxicated by his thoughts, flickering through his mind like lights reflected on a disco ball, glittering in the muted darkness of an empty bar.

These days his name is a whisper in everyone’s ear, upstairs as well as downstairs, but he himself is nowhere to be found. A golden light, flickering amongst the stars. There and gone. Maybe they think they just imagined his presence. Might’ve been a plane. A shooting star.

Crowley looks back into the crowd surrounding him, faces melting into the shadows behind his dank glasses. Not that he minds terribly. Six thousand years are a long time. Demonic miracles stick to his fingertips like ash and coal and moon dust. Peasants and kings and courtesans, greed and lust and envy.

Six thousand years. Blood sticks to his name, dried and flaky, but when he licks his lips, he only tastes apple juice. He’s very tired. Six thousand years, he thinks, swimming through the nightly city, vaguely towards the Tower where the air still tastes like fire and copper. Neither of that had been Crowley.

The only thing, he thinks as his fingertips dance over the railing of the bridge, that they remember him for. Under him, the city dances on black waves, dissolving into flecks of light. The Thames has always been dear to his heart. It changes with the tides, a river influenced by the moon. Endlessly reflecting the unreachable. Maybe he relates.

He stands and looks up, past the clouds, into the stars. His name is sticky with blood, his hands dripping with apple juice and curiosity. By his own choice, yes. But it’s strange to think how it’s what they see him as, when he’s spent so much time with his head tilted back, his hand extended towards the sky.

Between his fingers, the stars sparkle. He sighs and turns back towards the Tower, his steps inaudible. If he isn’t quite touching the ground, nobody would be able to tell. Snake leather, a soft breeze, cooled by the moon-drunk river. These days, sighs taste sweet on his tongue.

Six thousand years of brushing against humans as he walks past them, six thousand years of constant movement. Them, passing by and passing away, and him, brushing against them, brushing past their thoughts and lives. A constantly moving constant, like the stars.

Just as lonely.

But that’s where _he_ comes in, isn’t it? Another constant, six thousand years. Brushing past Crowley now and then, passing him on his way.

Like two planets, down here on earth, circling each other. Round and round like a disco ball.

Crowley takes a left turn, twirls on his heel, thinks about dancing. They don’t, of course. He’s pretty sure they _can’t_, at least not together.

But – a car slows to let him skip over the road – he’s thought about it. Right from the start, when he’d seen those complicated left-right-hop-bow-change partner-constructions they’d come up with. He’d watched, clad in velvet and leather and with pearl earrings brushing his shoulder, and he’d imagined rustling silk, a hand in his. Song and the scent of smoke and candle light reflecting on glass.

It had been an achingly soft longing, a soft sigh in the warm summer night. All dances, in Crowley’s opinion, are expressions of longing in varying degrees of intensity.

But suddenly, long hair had been back in fashion. Earrings. And he’d sat in a dark bar, clad in velvet and leather, and he’d known that if he hadn’t been alone, there would’ve been the slightest rustle of silk. Maybe a necktie, this time. A shirt, possibly.

Crowley had thought about it, about silk and a hand in his, while smoke had stung his eyes and dancing lights had caught in the edges of his class, reflected off of a disco ball. It had been warm and dark enough to dance without having to fear judging eyes. 

Crowley steps into a puddle, the light of the passing cars turning the drops into a rain of red-white stars. A splatter and they’re gone, memories of a hot, lonely time.

He’s dancing a little faster now, twirling around the street corners, a slither of black and red in the darkened shop windows. Velvet and leather, once again. A glimpse at himself just as the first drops fall, glittering on black glass. 

Like when he’d sat in his flat, high up above the city, listening to music in the dark of a half-imagined place. The vinyl spinning and the notes catching in the drops clinging to his glass. Gaze lost in the night, the sky which had looked so very empty. The city below, always full and bustling, had only ever made him feel lonely in return.

Whiskey and fizzling static and everyone lost in their own journeys, except for him. A lost comet, Phaeton. Golden boy, fallen. Terribly alone. 

Now, a soft exhaustion dripping from his limbs, he smiles. The rain is seeping through his blazer, drops glittering on velvet like stars on a very dark sky on a warm night.

By now, the streets have turned into a pitter-pattering supernova. Neon lights reflected in falling rain, on dark shop windows, on wet asphalt. Up above it all, the stars glitter. The rain washes away the heat of the day and nobody knows where he is. Blood washed off his name.

The asphalt slips under his feet, something resembling a slow waltz, a turn and finally, the warm light in the depths of one lone shop. Crowley’s fingers run through his hair, wet and cold.

The doorknob slips under his hands, rain slips into his collar. But the door opens and Crowley steps into the golden light of the shop, leaving the rainy night behind.

It had been another warm day and the late summer heat has seeped into the wooden floors, into the books. The air is filled with it, with the sweet scent of pollen and paper.

“Darling, where have you _been_?”

Golden, shiny like a star, Aziraphale appears, two cups in hand. 

Looking at him, Crowley feels a golden pulse of warmth through him. His thoughts spin, glittering spots in the dark. “Oh, just – just out. Have you seen the stars tonight?”

Aziraphale carefully places both cups on a nearby table, then steps closer. “I’m afraid not. Did I miss anything?” He touches the lapel of Crowley’s jacket, finding that the material is dry. Like rain on lotus blossoms. 

Crowley looks at those hands, soft and warm, careful whenever he touches him. And that’s the secret, Crowley thinks as he leans in, slipping into Aziraphale’s open arms, resting his chin on his shoulder. For all the time Crowley had stood, reaching up towards the stars, Aziraphale had reached down. 

Molten gold pulses through his veins as he wraps his arms around Aziraphale. A silk tie brushes against his collarbones. “Have you ever thought about dancing?”

“Dancing?” Aziraphale’s voice is soft, almost a sigh, dripping in longing.

“Yes. I’d like to try it some time. If you wouldn’t mind, of course.” His grip on Aziraphale tightens just slightly, just enough to feel him in his arms, to hold him and know that he’s being held in return.

On a stack of books, a record player cracks and fizzes, the plate slowly starts to spin. A static scratch of the needle, then piano, drums.

While the stars glitter in the never-ending, unreachable darkness of the universe, notes glitter in a tiny bookshop in Soho, where a Demon and an angel dance together for the first time. And an outsider might say that what they’re doing doesn’t resemble any dance they’ve ever seen, but after six thousand years, those opinions don’t matter much to Crowley.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! 
> 
> This was a lot of fun, but it was quite difficult as well. The song has such a specific atmosphere and I tried my best to catch that, but alas, I'm not sure how well I succeeded. The nostalgia for a retro-future is just so beautiful. The longing, the delicate sadness, it's all so sweet.
> 
> I used to write quite a few of these song-inspired little pieces, but I fear I'm a bit out of practise. It was as I said fun to do but I'm all Hmmmmmm about the end result if you get my drift. Thus I would really love to know what you thought about it! 
> 
> Only two notes tonight:  
\- Phaeton is the son of Helios who asked to drive the sun cart over the horizon and fell. I read Ovid's version of the story the other day and I'm still gripped by such intense sadness when thinking about it. I feel Crowley might relate to him - in Ovid's version, Phaeton didn't ask out of arrogance, he wanted proof that Helios was his father (and would thus grant him this honour). I don't know, it's such a sad tale of love and trust and fate and. :(
> 
> \- not to ruin the cuteness but due to the fact that Aziraphale can only throw legs like a 19th century gay and demons, according to the book, dance like Eurovision background dancers, I kinda just imagined them being extremely goofy. And by that I mean I was thinking of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Hot Dog dance.
> 
> Maybe you don't know yet, but this work is part of the [ineffable week](https://typinggently.tumblr.com/post/187584457180/in-september-i-want-to-dedicate-a-whole-week-to), which is a little list of prompts I collected because I wanted to try my hand at it and so far I'm having a lot of fun! If you'd like to join in, I'd be absolutely delighted! If you do so & happen to be on tumblr - please tag your posts with #ineffable week or (even better, because tumblrs tagging system sucks), put it on the ineffable week post by reblogging/commenting, so I(and others) can find them! :) 
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://typinggently.tumblr.com/), where you can find a [post](https://typinggently.tumblr.com/post/187629697745/dolls-like-you-and-me-by-wallissa-ineffable) for this fic as well!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and if you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a heart or even a comment! It brightens my day like you wouldn't believe! :)  
Have a lovely day and I'll be back tomorrow!


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